Wat Traimit

Wat Traimit, also called the Temple of the Golden Buddha by Thai Chinese people, is located near Chinatown in the southwest of Hua Lamphong Grand Central Railway Station. It is a famous temple in Thailand, ranking as one of the three national treasures of the country. It is said that the temples were built with the financial support of three Chinese people, thus it is also called the Temple of Three Friends.

Wat Traimit is well-known as the world’s largest solid-gold Buddha inside the temple. The graceful Buddha which is seated is nearly 4 meters high and weighs 5.5 tons. The two knees are 3 meters apart from each other. The glinting gold Buddha looks solemn and serene. It is both an artistic masterpiece of the Sukhothai Kingdom Era and a valuable treasure of Buddhism and Thailand.

The Golden Buddha was discovered about 700 years ago. Acording to the legend, the seat of the temple was originally rather desolate. Afterwards, many Chinese immigrants inhabited there gradually. The inhabitants wanted to carry back the Buddha statue which had been abandoned in a waste mountain. On the way back, they dismantled it into nine parts. When the statue was finally moved into the temple, a piece of ironclad fell apart and exposed the gold inside. After the cover of ironclad was removed, the shiny and gold statue was known all over the country and the temple was then named “the Temple of Golden Buddha”.

According to another legend, the statue was made during the Sukhothai Kingdom Era. When foreign invasion came, people covered the statue with mud in order to protect it from robbery. From then on, the statue had been buried in the mud for more than 300 years. Later when it was excavated, it was enshrined and preserved in an old temple on the bank of Mekong River because people didn’t found out its previous color. The temple was soon turned into a warehouse. When people were trying to remove the statue, it accidentally fell onto the ground, the mud went off and the vivid gold statue revealed. It immediately became a rare and precious treasure and was transported to Bangkok to receive worship from countless disciples.